Greys & Things

I learned some news this morning that upset me.  I guess I could be one of the last to know.  I learned a big Guiding Light spoiler.  Have you heard?  The show is going off the air in September!  I’m really upset.  I love that show.  I have only watched for maybe the past two years, but I’m in love with Lizzie, Daisy, Reva, Bill and several others.  I went to town this morning so that I wouldn’t miss this afternoon’s show.  There is a story line right now that I just can’t miss.   As you may remember, we do not have a DVR and our VCR is eating tapes. While at the store, I saw the headline on Soap Opera Digest that Guiding Light was going off the air. I came home and checked it out on the Internet and it is true.  I will have to find something else to occupy my time from 2 pm to 3 pm.  I guess I could exercise.  Nah!  LOL

The only other soap that I watch is As The World Turns.  I am not happy with the story lines on that one right now and have switched to watching Ellen many afternoon.

Life is about change and this is just another change in my ever changing life.  I have decided that I will not be posting daily on this blog.  I know I do have some regular readers, so I wanted to give you a heads up.  I didn’t want you to think that I fell of the face of the earth or anything like that. I would like to thank you for reading my blog, learning about my life and leaving comments.  I enjoyed meeting all of you.  I will pop in from time to time to tell you of my latest camping adventures and also any important updates on the lives of the greyhounds, Jack and Scout. You can also visit them at their own blog, Two Greyhound Town . They are pretty good at keeping their blog updated with photos and their latest adventures.

When you see a motor home traveling down the highway, I hope you smile and think about me, my camping obsessed husband and our greyhounds.  I would say to honk, but you might scare the driver.

Bye for now,

Patty and the greyhounds, Jack & Scout

I hope everyone had a nice Easter.  I tried to post my blog yesterday, but my entry kept timing out.  It was very frustrating.

Jack and Scout wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter.   They did not see the Easter Bunny yesterday even though they looked and looked.

We went to my BIL’s house for Easter.  We had a nice lunch.  I brought two desserts.  I had a terrible time preparing them and actually threw one dessert in the trash.  I tried to make my Magic Peach Cobbler and I used the wrong type of peaches.  I used pie filling peaches and even though I rinsed them off, they caused the entire dessert to turn a dark brown.  It smelled burnt.  The Triple Chocolate Cherry dessert did turn out even though I added an extra egg.  I ended up making cupcakes from scratch because I didn’t have anything else in the house.  I topped the cupcakes with butter-cream icing with almond extract.  I spent more time than I planned on the desserts and my back ached after I completed them.  I just can’t stand in the kitchen for an extended amount of time.

The kids had their Easter egg hunt.  They each had to find 23 eggs.  It was a cold day and at times, it seemed like the Easter egg hunt that would never end.  It was fun though.

How was your day?

Jack and Scout are not happy with us right now.  Unfortunately, they are not going to be happy for probably the next month.  It’s not as bad as it sounds really.  Hubby and I are working to get grass to grow in their backyard and in order to do this, we had to block off most of their yard while the grass grows.  Our plan in the beginning was to only block off half of the yard and then do the other half.  We realized that this would probably take most of the summer, so we decided to do it all at once and get it over with.

The backyard started out being our garden.  We had dirt hauled in and hubby worked very hard getting it established.  He loved his garden.  After Jack arrived, I wanted a fenced yard for him.  Our yard is basically wooded, except for the garden.  We decided we wanted to adopt a second greyhound, so hubby decided to give up his garden.  We put in a 6′ fence and we tried to turn the garden area into a yard.  It’s been tough due to a lot of ruts in the yard.  The grass never really became established before we let the dogs in the yard, so we deal with a lot of mud in the spring and winter.  Today, we finally took steps to getting the ruts out of the yard and growing grass.

Scout looks so sad when she goes outside now.  She looks through the orange fencing that keeps her from her favorite running spot.  She just doesn’t understand.  She can still run up and down the yard if she wants to.  Greyhounds run in circles though.  It must be that track training.

The yard before the new grass was planted.

Scout exploring her area of the yard.

Scout woke me up around 2 a.m. this morning.  She needed to go outside.  She goes through phases where she will wake me up every night and then it stops for a while.  I have learned not to totally wake up when I take her out and then I normally just go right back to sleep.  Jack heard us go outside and he decided he needed to go, too.  They both did their business and then we heard this loud noise.  Something was running on the outside of the fence.  We have a 6′ privacy fence, so we cannot see through it.  The dogs were upset to hear this noise and it made me nervous.  It went on for what seemed liked a long time, but was probably on a few seconds.  Scout barked and it stopped.  It started up again after she quit barking.  I kept yelling at the dogs to come in, but they ignored me.  They are like cats in that they ignore me if they feel like it.  They finally came in and I am assuming that the noise we heard were deer.  What else could it have been?  It was large and made a lot of noise as it ran by.

The incident last night caused me to think about something that happened a few years ago.   I walked outside and found some rather large hoof marks in our yard.  The tracks went all around our house and really tore up the yard.  The tracks even went in between our camper and house.  I couldn’t figure out what it could have been.  If it were deer, they were huge deer.  I was concerned all day about what could have been in our yard.  As soon as Hubby came home, I immediately showed him the tracks.  He started laughing at me.  He said he had seen some cows on our road when he left for work.  He never imagined that they would come through our yard.  We do not even know where the cows came from.  There are not any cows around that we know of and to this day, we still don’t know where the cows are.   I wish I would have seen the cows walk by my window.  I can only imagine what my reaction would have been.  I have seen turkey, deer, rabbits, turtles, raccoons, opossums outside my window, but never a cow.  LOL

The snow is over.  I think we probably got an inch.  It’s a heavy snow and has some of our smaller trees bent over.  I was asleep when the snow came, so I am not sure if it was hamster, gooey butter cake or bowling ball size.  Those were all the predictions that the weather men were giving for this snowfall. The snow is already melting.  That’s the best type of snow in my opinion.  It’s supposed to be 60 here tomorrow.

We are celebrating the last cold weekend of the season by having a fire in our fire place. I am going to fix chili today.  I hope to not do much work.  I want to make a few dog collars today.

I ordered our fishing licenses on-line and they arrived yesterday.  I can now fish when we camp.  Honestly, I didn’t want to purchase one in person because you have to give your weight.  I didn’t feel like announcing that to whoever took my information, plus I figured Hubby would be standing right there.  I have a thing about not telling Hubby the actual number.   We have purchased fishing licenses in the past, so all of our information is on-line.  I noticed that Hubby hasn’t updated his weight from like five years ago, so I didn’t either.  LOL

We are supposed to head out on Friday for a four day camping trip.  We are going trout fishing.  I told Hubby I would fish in the afternoon, but do not have any intentions in standing out there in the wee hours of the morning.

On a sad note, Mizzou lost last night.  I was really hoping that they would make it to the final four.

Happy Sunday!

It’s true, last night the weather man said that the snowflakes tonight would be gooey butter cake sized.  Hubby and I just looked at each other and laughed.  I think the weather men are trying to out do each other here in St. Louis.  This morning, the forecast was for 3″ to 5″ of heavy snow.  I haven’t heard the latest forecast since we haven’t been home.

Hubby and I went to the city today to do a little bit of shopping.  It was pouring rain, so we ended up getting drenched.  We really need to learn to keep an umbrella in the car.  We stopped at the dollar store.  I spent $25, which is the most that I have ever spent there.  I stocked up on laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent, shampoo, conditioner, trash bags and a few spices.   I wish I lived closer to the dollar store because I probably would shop there first before going to other stores.  I also shopped at a different grocery store while Hubby was at a tool store.  It was fun seeing different things that are offered there compared to what we have here.

Tonight, I am fixing us a steak dinner with baked potatoes, garlic bread and salad.  Sex and the City, the movie is on tonight.  I haven’t seen it yet, so it sounds like a fun evening for me.

I am updating my Blogroll.  If anyone would like to be added, please let me know.  I will be removing my Entrecard next week.

(My Rosie Roomba, she is sick.)

My husband purchased a Roomba for me Christmas 2007.  When it comes to making purchases it normally takes us months and months to make a decision.  The Roomba decision was no different. I probably talked about getting one for six months before we ordered her and then that turned into a big deal.  I thought he was going to get it for me for Christmas.  He figured I would just order it myself.  He ended up ordering it for me at the last minute and it arrived before Christmas.

We make a funny announcement to our family through email announcing the arrival of “Rosie”, which was the name we chose for Ms. Roomba.  We had a photo of Jack and Scout looking out the window waiting for Rosie to arrive.  Everyone thought we had adopted another greyhound.

I love Roomba. She is high maintenance though.  I spend a great deal of time cleaning her out, cleaning her brushes, etc.  Roomba’s battery started going bad a few months ago.  I babied her along until she just couldn’t hold a charge any longer.  I found a battery for her on Ebay which saved me about $30.  The battery arrived and I was so excited.  I charged it up and Roomba took off cleaning.  I was so happy.  Unfortunately, Roomba started making a terrible noise about an hour into her cleaning.  I took her apart and found a small rock in her.  She quit making the noise and I thought she was fixed.  I ran her the whole next day and I noticed that she just wasn’t picking up the dirt. Hubby looked at her and discovered that her brushes are not moving.   It will cost me another $50 to fix her.  I just spent $50 on a battery.  Roomba is an expensive piece of equipment.  Hubby said he will look at her one more time and then we will order a new motor for her.   I checked the website and there is a 3-4 week backlog to order the part I need.  Does that mean that this piece breaks all the time?   Poor Roomba.

I just returned from a trip to “the city”.  I had three bags and which bag did I drop?  The one with jar of cocktail sauce, of course.  It broke in the bag and went all over the salad dressing bottle and the french fries.  I’m glad the cocktail sauce wasn’t with the fabric or thread that I purchased today.  I probably would have cried.

I went to the city to look for fabric for collars.  I finally found a fabric that I think is cute for camping.  It is blue and has ketchup bottles, mustard bottles and BBQ tools on it.  Unfortunately, there was just a small piece of material and I don’t think I will be able to make two collars of it.  I will make it for Jack because it is much easier to find cute things for Scout than it is for Jack.

Last night I finished a computer game that I have been playing.  It was Wedding Dash.  After I finished Pet Shop Hop, my husband said that maybe that qualified me to work in a pet store.  I wonder if now I can become a wedding planner.  LOL  Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone would try to put something like that on their resume.  I verify employment and educations and people lie all the time.  I ran across a diploma mill yesterday.  Basically, you give them $249 and they will give you a high school diploma.  They base it on your life experiences.  It’s true.

Where did the weekend go?  I actually had off three days and I still can’t believe that it went by so quickly.

Camping obsessed hubby is ready for Friday.  We are leaving Friday morning for a weekend of camping.  It sounds like we are going rain or shine which brought him a very dirty look from me yesterday.  Camping in the rain with two dogs is not fun.  They don’t like it and I don’t like walking them in the rain.  The first thing he said to me this morning was this “you should get all your stuff out into the camper before it rains on Wednesday so that you don’t track mud into the camper”.  I had not even cleared the sleep from my eyes and he was talking about camping.  I don’t even know what I am taking yet.  I have to get into the camping mindset in order to get myself organized.  He doesn’t understand that I have to plan the menu and purchase all the food which he does not make suggestions for by the way, make sure the dogs have all of their things and then make sure I have my clothing.  The first camping trip is always the worst as far as having everything in the camper.  We will leave things in it for the rest of the season, but the first trip is putting everything back into it.  I have stolen several things out of it over the winter such as paper plates, paper towels, foil.  It’s kind of like my own private store.  I am making a list now of things that I know we will need and trying to plan the menu.

We have to hide the fact that we are going from Jack.  The boy gets so excited when he figures out that we are going camping.  He’s a wild boy running through the house.  Jack and Scout both love to camp, but Jack is like his Daddy in that he loves it.

Hubby is so excited.  We are planning a camping trip for this Friday.  He is preparing the motor home now.  He has to flush the water out of it which means if we face freezing weather again, we will have to keep it heated.  He is the one that has to do all of that so it’s his decision when to flush it out.  He said he will vacuum it out for me, so that’s nice.  I hate vacuuming.  My Roomba is not healthy right now.  I have been nursing her along, but finally gave in and ordered her a new battery.  It should be arriving tomorrow.

We had a nice time visiting Hubby’s family yesterday.  They took us out for lunch to celebrate my birthday.  It was a very nice lunch.  They enjoyed the dessert that I prepared.  Hubby’s Mom is really getting around well.  She had her hip replaced in early February.  Yesterday, was her first time going out to eat.  They are planning on going camping with us at the end of April.  It’s another month away, so hopefully she doesn’t have problems with the steps to her camper by then.

I am washing all the blankets, towels and sheets from the camper today.  I like having everything fresh for our first trip out.  I have to get in the camping mindset and figure out what food I want to take.  We will only be gone two nights, so that’s a good test to see what we have forgotten.  I’m getting excited about the trip, but not as much as Hubby.  LOL